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Ryan Getzlaf remembers what it felt like inside, winning the Stanley Cup, holding it up proudly, all the while knowing something was missing.

His big brother Chris, his best friend, wasn't there with him.

"Now you're trying to bring a tear to my eye," said Chris Getzlaf, the slot receiver of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, being told what his brother had said earlier in the day in a telephone conversation.

"He's always been with me," said Ryan, the star centre with the Anaheim Ducks.

"He was with me when I got drafted. He came to the Olympics in Vancouver when he won."

The truth is, for the first family of Saskatchewan sport, Chris Getzlaf didn't just miss his brother winning the Stanley Cup in 2007 -- he didn't see it.

He wanted to.

The timing just didn't work out for the elder of the two Getzlaf brothers -- Chris is 30, Ryan is 28, although some might have guessed Ryan as the big brother.

Chris was a rookie in training camp with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

There were two-a-day practices. There were meetings. There was the crush of his first professional camp. It was early to bed.

"The games were so late," he said. "I watched some of it, but not all of it.

"I wasn't able to be there. It was crushing."

This is championship Sunday for Chris Getzlaf and his hometown Saskatchewan Roughriders and, all week long, Ryan tried to figure out how he could get to the game. He looked at the possibility of flying home. He looked at the Ducks' schedule. He thought he might be able to get something accomplished.

Instead, he's hosting a Grey Cup party in California (he wouldn't say t how big it would be), watching on satellite television.

His favourite team growing up, his only brother playing -- what can be better than that for two kids from Regina, who grew up playing a whole lot of hockey and football and baseball and just about everything else?

What could be better than that?

If you look at Ryan -- all 6-foot-4, 220 pounds of him -- and his natural strength, his diminished hairline, his square jaw, you could easily think he, not Chris, was the older brother.

Chris is 6-feet-tall, maybe 200 pounds with a full head of hair and has had to beat the odds at every level to get this far in the Canadian Football League. He was never a sure thing.

He was a late draft pick of Hamilton in 2007, a kid who admits he never started the first year on any team he played on. He always had to battle.

He was someone who went from the practice roster in Hamilton, was a throw-in a trade to Saskatchewan, barely played at all in his first three years, yet kept slugging away at it.

Very little but survival happened in the first four years of his career.

In his last four years, he has caught footballs for just under 4,000 yards.

"It's huge what he's done, considering where he's come from," said Ryan, who said his brother said could have played Major League baseball if he was so inclined.

"He's done so good for himself. Our careers have kind of peaked at different times," said Ryan.

"He's supported me 100% before I got noticed. He's been a little bit in the background at times. There's not one bit of jealousy between us. We're there for each other. We've always been there for each other.

"Me and him have been best friends since I was 14. Growing up, we had our battles. He didn't want me around when I was the younger brother. You know how it is. Older brother doesn't want a younger brother around.

"Once I hit the age of 14, we became best friends. Our friends are now the same. We all hang out together. Everything we've always done is to support each other."

They started in football the same year. Chris was 13, Ryan 11.

"I was a lousy football player," Ryan confessed.

"Lousy in his mind, maybe," said Chris. "He just expected so much of himself.

"Ryan was a better hockey player from the jump and it was known early that he had a chance to go on and play. I played a lot of hockey, too, but football was my thing.

"I spent numerous years being on the bench, then became a starter, then on the bench, then became a starter on just about every team I played on, in every age group.

"My trek to become a professional -- I don't want to say it was longer or harder, because it's really hard to make the NHL -- but I didn't know if I could ever play professionally."

In his rookie CFL season, Getzlaf didn't step on the field, but earned a Grey Cup ring as a practice roster player with the Roughriders.

That championship came five months after Ryan had won his only Stanley Cup with Brian Burke and Randy Carlyle's Ducks.

"Those were good times," said Chris. "But what you always want to know is who is going to be there in bad times. When I've needed him, for whatever, he's been there, and I think when he's needed me, I've been there.

"When there's been personal issues, things like that, I've been there. You want to talk about it. You want to help a brother get through it. In his one down year it was difficult for him. He was going bad. The team was going bad. He struggled with that because he's always been successful. I think I helped him through that."

He says that with a smile and with pride.

"He makes me proud," said Chris Getzlaf.

"And I'd like to think he's proud of me. In fact, I know he is."

THE BOYS OF WINTER?

Chris Getzlaf expects to be in Sochi for the Winter Olympics.

All he needs for his February trip to come through is to make certain his brother Ryan will be playing for Team Canada.

"My plan is to be there," said Chris. "That's how I'm thinking about it. That's the way I'm looking at it.

"I loved being in Vancouver in 2010. I want to go there, support him, hopefully watch him win a gold medal.

Ryan Getzlaf confirmed Thursday that if he was picked for the Canadian Olympic team -- as he should be -- his brother would be there alongside him.

Getzlaf currently ranks third in the NHL in points, second among Canadian players, and tied with John Tavares.

Getzlaf brothers share special bond

Ryan Getzlaf remembers what it felt like inside, winning the Stanley Cup, holding it up proudly, all the while knowing something was missing.

His big brother Chris, his best friend, wasn't there with him.

"Now you're trying to bring a tear to my eye," said Chris Getzlaf, the slot receiver of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, being told what his brother had said earlier in the day in a telephone conversation.